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Newsletter 143 18 March 2022
Resolving Global Crises
Including Vaccine Inequality
For 23 days the world has been reeling from the Putin regime's invasion of Ukraine and the harrowing details of the escalating conflict and its impact on Ukraine's citizens, which has seen over 3 million people flee the country. Here at COVID-DEM we have been rather torn, debating about whether to pivot to a focus on the Ukraine conflict and what it means for Ukraine's developing democratic system, and global democracy. In the end, we have decided that there are so many outlets doing an excellent job covering the conflict that our most valuable contribution right now is to ensure that other major issues arising from Covid don't get lost in the mix. We'll continue to remain reflective about this as 2022 progresses.
For now, we can highly recommend a new Policy Brief by Erika Feller (former Assistant High Commissioner (Protection) with UNHCR) on the urgent need to revive multilateralism to address the daunting array of global crises including conflict, the Covid-19 pandemic, climate crisis, hunger, displacement, inequality and migration, and digital threats. Her compelling call for Australia to stop thinking of just how it can benefit from the UN to considering how it can contribute more fully to strengthening multilateral approaches to global crises can be applied to so many of the world's democracies - not least on the issue of global vaccine inequality, which is the subject of new analysis by Human Rights Watch.
In this update, we're highlighting:
- New Policy Brief on resolving global crises and reviving the UN
- New HRW analyses of the pandemic and human rights in the last two years
- New survey under the Journalism and the Pandemic Project by ICFJ
- New analyses of upcoming pandemic elections - Nepal and the Philippines
- Upcoming webinar on Australian federalism and Covid-19
- Additional items in our Policy Hub and Super-Blog
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Resolving Global Crises
& Reviving the UN
With the world facing daunting global crises including conflict, Covid-19, climate change and spiking refugee numbers, in a new Policy Brief Professorial Fellow Erika Feller discusses the UN's Our Common Agenda, arguably one of the most hard-hitting reports recently released by UN Secretary General António Guterres, as well as Australia's need to step up as part of the solution. From 2005 to April 2013 Erika Feller was Assistant High Commissioner (Protection) with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Brief is No.18 in the Governing During Crises series at Melbourne School of Government, co-edited by COVID-DEM Director Tom Daly and Hannah Irving.
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Two Years On, Millions Still
Denied the Right to Health
It's been two grueling years since the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic. While some countries including New Zealand, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Vietnam experience their highest reported wave of infections thus far, many have veered away from restrictions like lockdowns and mask mandates, with people well in line for their third or even fourth doses of vaccines. The same could not be said about those living in low-income countries, of whom more than 85 percent are still waiting for their first dose, reflecting the persistent huge disparities in vaccine access globally. As the waiver of intellectual property rules/protections on vaccines, treatments, and testing continues to be stalled at the World Trade Organisation, sharing of vaccine knowledge/technology and subsequent production and access among marginalised populations remain vastly inhibited. High-income governments have managed to thwart a swifter, equitable, and rights-based global response by repeatedly prioritising short-sighted, individual state mediations which are incompatible with international human rights norms.
Director of Crisis Advocacy at Human Rights Watch Akshaya Kumar offers that things could have been different if human rights had been central in more policy responses, and presents seven ways governments could recalibrate their approach to the pandemic in year three:
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ‘Two Years On, What Has Covid-19 Taught Us?’ (11 March 2022)
See also:
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ‘Covid-19 Pandemic’s Human Rights Failures Persist’ (11 March 2022)
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH, ‘Covid-19 Vaccine Access is a Right, Not a Privilege’ (10 March 2022)
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ICFJ: Journalism and the Pandemic Project (Phase II)
Over the past two years, the unrelenting waves of coronavirus have caused journalists to face an unprecedented, immense pressure, be it authoritarian government silencing dissent and curtailing their right to report freely, risks of prosecution, death threats, mental and physical exhaustion, or the fear of catching Covid itself. Yet many experienced the crisis as a revitalization of their practice, deeper connections with both their vocation and their audiences, and new opportunities for publishers of independent journalism.
"What are the longer-term effects of the pandemic on journalists and journalism? How can news organizations, donors and civil society adapt? And can this existential crisis now be recast as journalism's reformation moment?"
In this second phase of the Journalism and the Pandemic Project launched on 9 March 2022, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) and Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism are conducting a new survey to map the longer term impacts and needs of journalists around the world in the context of an ongoing pandemic, while also seeking to assess the myriad creative ways in which journalists have responded to the challenges and opportunities presented by a period of historic upheaval and transformation.
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Philippine National Elections -
A Critical Juncture
On 8 February, tens of thousands of people left their homes to support their preferred presidential and vice presidential candidates, marking the official start of the 90-day campaign period for the upcoming 2022 Philippine National Elections. Taking place on 9 May, the elections are unprecedented and expected to be one of the most fiercely contested in recent Philippine history as they will not only inaugurate a "crisis presidency", but also constitute a referendum on populist strongman President Rodrigo Duterte: a choice between continuing his style of governance and power or shifting to a more democratic government.
Following a record-breaking Omicron surge at the start of 2022, cases started to subside just as the campaign period kicked off, but health experts remain cautious and fearful of campaign/voting activities becoming superspreader events. While executing Covid-safe elections is well possible, and despite the oldest Southeast Asian democracy's relatively high voter turnouts in every election cycle, avoiding disenfranchisement and ensuring equal voting access for all in the middle of a health crisis is a challenging undertaking. In addition to election rules reforms to incorporate safety measures, civil society organizations and other electoral stakeholders have clamored for better effective communications, sound risk planning, as well as multi-stakeholder and inclusive approaches to planning and implementing COVID-19 related policies.
Media Michael BELTRAN, 'Philippine activists warn of voting anomalies ahead of election' Nikkei Asia (15 March 2022)
Policy ASIAN NETWORK FOR FREE ELECTIONS (ANFREL), ‘Elections in a Pandemic: How Filipinos Can Safely Elect Their Leaders’ (10 March 2022)
Policy EAST ASIA INSTITUTE (South Korea), ‘ADRN Issue Briefing: The 2022 Philippine Elections Primer: A Democratic Citizenship Perspective’ (4 March 2022)
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Nepalese Local Elections -
A Federalism Milestone
Having completed their first term since the constitutional transition to federalism in 2017, the 753 Nepalese local governments will be renewed by a second round of elections scheduled to take place on 13 May 2022. With the onset of Covid-19 in March 2020, the then newly formed governments, national (federal) and subnational (provincial and local), were largely unprepared to confront a crisis of this scale. Yet, many - at the subnational level - performed rather well, upholding accountable, democratic behavior throughout the pandemic. While the upcoming local elections signify a step in the right direction, it will take few more election rounds, significant reform efforts, and much more effective intergovernmental coordination to make federalism fully functional at all levels.
"The elections presents a golden opportunity to consolidate the lessons of the federal experiment and take forward-looking action to protect the safety and integrity of the political process and better equip the nation’s elected representatives at every level to manage a crisis that may be far from over."
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Upcoming Webinar: Australian Federalism in the Time of COVID
Has COVID-19 revived Australian federalism? What does federalism look like after the pandemic? Hosted by the Australian Academy of Law and Australian Association of Constitutional Law on 31 March 2022 at 16.15 (AWST), the event will be chaired by Professor Sarah Murray, with Professor Nicholas Aroney (University of Queensland) contributing about decision-making in a public health crisis, and Professor Alan Fenna (Curtin University) reflecting on whether we are seeing a revival of federalism in Australia.
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Policy Analysis
Additional items uploaded to our Policy Hub in the past two weeks include:
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Blog Posts
New blog posts uploaded to our Super-Blog in the past two weeks include:
Wendy E. PARMET, ‘Who ‘Deserves’ Health, Who ‘Deserves’ Freedom? A Recurrent Divide in SCOTUS Vaccine Mandate Cases’ Bill of Health (9 March 2022)
Ivana KRSTIC & Marko DAVINIC, ‘Covid-19 certificates: the Serbian Way’ LAC19 (7 March 2022)
Chinmayee MISHRA, ‘Book Review: The Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality by Toby Green’ EUROPP Blog (6 March 2022)
Pavlos VASILOPOULOS, Haley MCAVAY, Sylvain BROUARD & Martial FOUCAULT, ‘The fragility of democratic freedoms in the Covid-19 pandemic’ The Loop (28 February 2022)
Felipe Oliveira DE SOUSA, ‘Mandatory Vaccination is not an Assault to Freedom: A Plea for Mandatory Covid-19 Vaccination in Germany’ Int’l J. Const. L. Blog (27 February 2022)
Clareta TREGER, ‘The public wants the government to protect them from themselves – sometimes’ The Loop (25 February 2022)
Gabrielle ELLIOTT-WILLIAMS & Tracy ROBINSON, ‘Public Law in Private Employment: vaccination policies reach the courts of Jamaica’ LAC19 (25 February 2022)
Alexander HUDSON, ‘Protests, Emergency Powers, and Democracy: Hard Choices in Canada’ International IDEA Blog (23 February 2022)
Jens POGGENPOHL, ‘An Alarm Signal for Democracy’ GP Opinion (23 February 2022)
Peter J. VEROVŠEK, ‘Habermas on the Legitimacy of Lockdown’ Public Seminar (23 February 2022)
The Daily Blog (New Zealand)
Martyn BRADBURY, ‘The looming Police State response to Parliament Lawn protest will be cheered by the Left’ The Daily Blog (4 March 2022)
Martyn BRADBURY, ‘2/3/2022 has been a terrible day for NZ Democracy – the rough Beast of Bethlehem burns’ The Daily Blog (2 March 2022)
Martyn BRADBURY, ‘Why every Kiwi should celebrate High Court ruling on mandates’ The Daily Blog (1 March 2022)
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COVID-DEM is You
Every day we work with people worldwide to build this platform for helping us understand how the pandemic is challenging and re-shaping democracy globally, and the many ways we can defend and improve our democracies. Our sincere thanks to every one of you who has helped us to develop COVID-DEM into what it is today. Don't hesitate to send us your work and suggestions, to coviddem@gmail.com or through our online form.
Dr Tom Gerald Daly
Director
Find out more about Tom here.
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